How Chancellor Angela Merkel Has Paralyzed German Politics

'Mommy Merkel'How the Chancellor Paralyzed German Politics

During her eight years as chancellor, Angela Merkel has skillfully lulled Germans to sleep and used feel-good policies to switch their focus from politics to personal comfort. By starving Germany's democracy of vibrancy, "Mommy Merkel" has caused it to wither.

REUTERS

"There is no particular enthusiasm for (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel, but rather paralyzed consent."

Shh, not so loud. Just don't fight or get worked up. The chancellor has asked for calm, including during the campaign season. No attacks, no impertinence, no major debates. Stay home -- and keep dozing!

This is how things look in Germany in 2013, and how they have looked throughout Angela Merkel's almost eight years as German chancellor. Merkel, the head of the ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), wants calm -- and she gets it, too. When a chancellor holds office for a long time, he or she affects the mood of a country, the disposition of the people. Eight years are long enough to do so. Not everything in Germany is influenced by Merkel, but enough is that it would be accurate to say that we are creatures of the Merkel Era.

What has become of us? What is the state of the country? The term that has been gradually taking hold to describe this period is "Biedermeier."

Peer Steinbrück, the chancellor candidate for the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), recently used the word while criticizing Merkel in a speech he delivered at a party convention, and the media had used it before him. It's not a term with positive associations, and few people would brag about living a "Biedermeier" life. Nevertheless, we seem to be living in a second Biedermeier period.

The first Biedermeier era began with the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and ended in 1848, when Germany tried its hand at revolution. In Vienna, after emerging victorious against the revolutionary upstart Napoleon, the old, conservative monarchies re-established previous conditions and enforced them throughout Germany with the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819. Press censorship, in particular, was meant to prevent the spread of liberal and nationalist views. A portion of the disappointed middle class withdrew from public to private life, which had a detrimental effect on public discourse. Today, the word "Biedermeier" is mainly associated with the style of furniture typical of the period, as well as being used to express a certain quiet, lethargic sort of hominess.

Yet nationalist and liberal sentiments continued to simmer under the surface of the Biedermeier period. Many Germans wanted to combine their various small states into a unified nation-state, an ambition that also expressed itself in chauvinism toward France. Many also desired more freedoms and civil liberties, as well as the ability to have a greater say in political decision-making. Along with the apathy of the period, there was an underlying revolutionary mood, an anger that exploded first in 1830, on a small scale, and then in 1848, on a massive scale. Citizens put up some protest, but they were ultimately too indecisive to successfully establish a democracy and a nation-state.

The current chancellor certainly doesn't govern Germany with anything like the Carlsbad Decrees. Our freedoms remain undisturbed. Yet Merkel has managed to paralyze discourse in Germany and create a republic at ease.

'Paralyzed Consent'

Merkel comes from a consensus-based school of thought. She was raised in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), in which confrontation and polarization were viewed as unproductive. The country's ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) prescribed consensus and, thus, political calm. Even East German citizens who weren't party members and took a skeptical stance toward the system, such as Merkel, later had trouble adapting to the endless struggles that are part and parcel of life in a democracy.

Merkel avoids open confrontation whenever she can. She shies away from making clear statements, polarization and big social ideas that could spark disagreement. She's drifting through the current election campaign, hoping it will benefit her party if voter turnout is low because hardly anyone can find reason to get particularly worked up about how she leads Germany. Instead of making any demands, she doles out benefits to retirees and families. Indeed, she's sapping the life out of Germany and sprinkling powdered sugar on top.

And she's getting away with it. In 2009, she reduced voter turnout to a historic low. Since she doesn't offend anyone, she enjoys outstanding approval ratings. While combating the financial crisis, she has pursued policies that she declares to be "the only option." And, believing her, the SPD amiably toes the line in the best interest of the country. Merkel's main rival candidates from the SPD -- Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2009 and Peer Steinbrück in 2013 -- previously served as part of a grand coalition with her, the former as a foreign minister, the latter as finance minister. Ever since, they have seemed incapable of showing anything but complete respect and chivalry toward the chancellor. In fact, there have been no serious attacks on Merkel because there are no politicians willing to make themselves unpopular by taking a popular chancellor to task.

The general public, too, has remained calm -- just as Merkel likes it -- and no one seems to be able to come up with much reason to protest against her. There is no particular enthusiasm for Merkel, but rather paralyzed consent. People sit at home and read Landlust, a magazine that has achieved enormous success by telling stories about rural living and domestic bliss.

A Protective Mother

The country Merkel has created must remind her a bit of her first home, the GDR, which was Biedermeier in the form of a country. Of course, the Federal Republic of Germany is much freer than the GDR was. But this freedom, which is first and foremost the freedom to express disagreement, currently goes largely unutilized.

It is interesting that the most significant novel to come out of the Merkel era is a book about the GDR, Uwe Tellkamp's "Der Turm" ("The Tower"). Tellkamp describes a morbid, bourgeois world in the eastern city of Dresden in which politics per force play very little role and, ultimately, it is the city's beautiful buildings -- crumbling, but all the homier for it -- that set the mood. Add in the Leipzig School movement, which continues to set the tone for German painting, and "The Lives of Others" as Germany's most prominent recent contribution to filmmaking, and the GDR proves astonishingly influential in Germany's art scene today.

Politically, however, the GDR no longer has anything to say to us. It was an error of history, now irrelevant. Even Sahra Wagenknecht, a German politician from the far-left Left Party, whose communist ideas seem to be buoyed by capitalism's crises, says she wouldn't return to the GDR's political system. The interest in East Germany may also be explained by the widespread notion that things would be much more relaxing in the absence of politics. In that sense, Merkel is working to build a "tower" for everyone -- a sheltered place of calm, a homey home -- and Germans as a whole don't seem opposed to the idea.

This general quiet also has to do with the fact that Merkel and her ministers have so far managed to spare the country from the unpleasant consequences of the financial crisis. Unlike in Southern Europe, where enormous numbers of people are now unemployed, in Germany, the economy is growing and incomes are rising. This is commendable, but it also has something of a chauvinistic approach to it. The re-nationalization of politics is one of the Merkel Era's truly significant changes. The chancellor does not fundamentally reject solidarity with Germany's European partners, but she does set limits. There won't be eurobonds under Merkel.

Merkel's policies could even be described as expansionary. She would like for other countries to adopt Germany's standards of stability and efficiency, allowing Europe as a whole to become more competitive. That way, Merkel figures, Germany as a major power in Europe would be able to preserve its influence in the world. It's been a long time since a German politician dared to have so much national ambition. And this attitude is well received by the general public. For many Germans, Merkel is the defender of their homeland against the world.

The "power engine of Europe" has the next to zero growth and is about to enter into a recession. With no realistic prospect of a recovery in the near future.
Megalomaniac "EU project", Merkel [...]

The "power engine of Europe" has the next to zero growth and is about to enter into a recession. With no realistic prospect of a recovery in the near future.
Megalomaniac "EU project", Merkel enthusiastically supported is dead, and so is euro.
Windmills wont'replace atomic plants Merkel, reversing herself, ordered shut down, making Germany even more vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
BND looks the other way while neoNazism is growing.
Hardly a peaceful, sleepy and content environment.
In which Alternative fur Deutschland is gaining more and more supporters.

Power2People 08/08/2013 08/08/2013

2. How Chancellor Paralyzed German Politics

I totally agree with the view of Mr. Dirk Kurbjuweit that Mommy Merkel has detached the focus of German people from politics to personal comfort. And indeed by insisting on calm and complaisance, without debate and [...]

I totally agree with the view of Mr. Dirk Kurbjuweit that Mommy Merkel has detached the focus of German people from politics to personal comfort. And indeed by insisting on calm and complaisance, without debate and discussion and dialogue, starving German democracy of vibrancy, she has caused it to wither.
German by nature is a bourgeois conformist, a Biedermeir, almost 70 years of bureaucracy Das Papier, has influenced the way the German mind works and reacts to anything and everything. Merkel knowing this, has taken advantage and affected the mood of the country and its people. The ordinary German has stopped thinking for himself, has stopped taking charge of the things, he knows that someone else will make the decisions for him. If Germans have become the creatures of Merkel Era, it is because there is lack of information. And as your article says, even Merkel shies away from making clear statements about big social issues and ideas which will revive the public interest in national politics and matters which concern them. But a politicians popularity lasts as long as she does not makes big waves and makes no controversial or unpopular decisions. By doling out benefits, she keeps the population politically somnolent.
What has become of the German and the country at large is that in political arena, the man on the street has gone home and stayed there dozing, secure behind his four walls, afraid that if he makes demands, debates or argues the issues which although may concern him too, may result in his losing the comforts and privileges the State conforms on him. Apart from this being a period of a German being a Biedermeier, this has increasingly become a period of social and economic uncertainty, increasing State control over the individual. This fear is growing throughout the whole continent of Europe. This fear is the key to keep the population subdued.
Although most of the population wants more freedom of expression and action, safeguard of civil liberties and the opportunity to have a greater say in political decision-making, the fear of ridicule, lackluster collective public response, has resulted in the general apathy and indifference. Our freedoms have disappeared, we are under total State control, our personal information, identity, acts and attitudes, social behavior, personal likes and dislikes, all are being invaded, by the government.
Today there is very little unemployment in Germany and the most important reason for this is the Government policy of compulsory Vocational Training, professional Formation, Ausbildung, and in todays competitive job market this is very important.
There is little doubt that Merkels policies are expansionary. Economic power increases military power, it does not however, guarantee more influence in world politics. We have the example of diminishing USA power on world stage. However, our concern should be as to how the politicians plot their policies for the national good.